LOS ANGELES – Dave Roberts only has one club in his bag – and the driver isn’t working.

Frustrated by the “empty at-bats” and poor situational hitting that his team seems to produce all too frequently these days, the Dodgers manager used the golf analogy when calling for hitters to make adjustments, shortening their swings when appropriate and focusing on putting the ball in play instead of taking big swings in search of extra bases all the time.

“You have to have different clubs in your bag,” Roberts said earlier this week. “When you have one club, you get exposed.”

Roberts might have inadvertently summed up the state of his team’s offense as a whole right now.

A year ago, the Dodgers hit a franchise-record 221 home runs. Six players hit at least 21. Six players had career-highs in home runs (starting with Cody Bellinger’s team-leading and NL rookie record 39).

That pop has been missing this season. Going into Saturday’s game, the Dodgers had hit only 33 home runs in the first 38 games of the season. Only three teams (the Tigers, Rays and Marlins) hit fewer. Fifty-four players entered play Saturday with six or more home runs this season. None of them plays for the Dodgers.

Roberts offered no theory to explain the power outage and said it could not be explained simply as the result of subtracting Justin Turner and Corey Seager from the lineup.

“I think if you look at all of our guys, maybe outside of (Yasmani) Grandal and (Chris) Taylor, as far as the homer side of things, they’re probably below what their career projections might be,” Roberts said. “Sure, when you lose Corey and Justin’s production that’s going to impact it to some level certainly.

“That I don’t have an answer for. I know there’s still an aggressiveness. We’re just mis-hitting baseballs. A couple homers robbed. But the entirety of it, I don’t have an answer.”

Without the longball to produce runs with a single swing, more pressure has been put on the situational hitting that has so dissatisfied Roberts. The Dodgers haven’t adjusted. In 13 games before Saturday, the Dodgers were 19 for 108 (.176) with runners in scoring position.

“If you look at the entirety of our offensive profile it sort of is a one-club team – which is something we need to continue to evolve, in my opinion,” Roberts said.

But don’t look for any leaps forward in the evolutionary process any time soon. Roberts doesn’t see the point in reaching for any new clubs if they aren’t in his bag.

“You have to look at the players you have and manage accordingly,” he said. “When we’re walking and we’re slugging, that’s what the profile of our guys is – that’s what they do. So to ask our guys to hit-and-run, they’re not guys who handle the bat to hit-and-run. Outside of Chase Utley, we don’t have guys to do that. And to hit and run with a left-handed batter, to hit the ball the other way and not advance the runner to third base – that doesn’t make sense. And then you have to take the combination of a potential swing-and-miss – and there’s swing-and-miss in there (in the Dodgers lineup). So now you’re exposing a baserunner. And to bunt, we don’t have guys who typically bunt. And who are you going to bunt for, behind that hitter, and can that guy at first or second base advance? Does he have the foot speed? So there are a lot of variables.

“It’s not easy just to say, ‘Do this, do that’ when you don’t have the personnel that is conducive to playing that style. So for me to change the way I manage our guys, for me, that is a flawed thought process. I believe in our offense and I believe it will correct itself and get better. it has to. And ultimately we’ll start winning baseball games.”

COMING SOON

Justin Turner and Logan Forsythe were in the lineup for Class-A Rancho Cucamonga on Saturday night.

Turner saw his first game action since suffering a fractured left wrist when he was hit by a pitch during a Cactus League game on March 19. Forsythe was the DH in his second rehab game with the Quakes.

Both are scheduled to play again for Rancho Cucamonga on Sunday and then rejoin the Dodgers Monday for the flight to Miami. Both are on track to come off the DL for Tuesday’s game against the Marlins.

ALSO

Right-hander Brock Stewart was returned to OKC and ambidexterous pitcher Pat Venditte was recalled. Corey Seager was moved to the 60-day DL to clear a 40-man roster spot for Venditte.

Venditte made 15 appearances for Oklahoma City, allowing only three earned runs in 17 2/3 innings while striking out 19 and holding opposing batters to a .167 average. The switch-pitcher has pitched more and been more effective throwing right-handed than left-handed.

Bill Plunkett has covered everything from rodeo to Super Bowls to boxing (yeah, I was there the night Mike Tyson bit Evander Holyfield's ear off) during a career that started far too long ago to mention and eventually brought him to the OC some time last century (1999 actually). He has been covering Major League Baseball for the Orange County Register since 2003, spending time on both the Angels and Dodgers beats.

Join the Conversation

We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. Although we do not pre-screen comments, we reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.

If you see comments that you find offensive, please use the “Flag as Inappropriate” feature by hovering over the right side of the post, and pulling down on the arrow that appears. Or, contact our editors by emailing moderator@scng.com.